Bio:

Born into a slave camp of the Inspired on the continent of Xen’drik, Burzam escaped as a young adult after a hapless warforged explorer wandered into the vicinity of his slave camp. When the Inspired guards killed the explorer, they left him only mostly dead, and Burzam manifested the ability to repair this warforged, and together they managed to escape the camp and survive the trip across the continent to Stormhome. Once in that fabled city the story of his escape spread and the details piqued the interest of representatives of House Cannith who were curious as to how the young half-giant had managed to revive the warforged. Upon examination, the Cannith members were shocked to discover that Burzam bore the Mark of Making, the first recorded half-giant to be born with this power.

Burzam, though fascinated by the magical properties of Xen’drik, was nevertheless shipped off to Sharn with the promise of even greater magical wonders to be seen in the Big City — promises which were kept, but the magic of Khorvaire proved of an entirely different kind than that of Xen’drik, much more polished and refined. The leaders of Cannith South were themselves impressed with Burzam’s unusual methods of thinking and of working, and sent the unwashed youth to several of the House’s schools and educational programs, teaching him the intricacies of Artifice as understood by the House. Burzam did not disappoint, displaying both an insatiable taste for (magical) learning as well as unconventional but indisputably effective talent for artifice.

It was his curiosity which gave the educators of Cannith the most trouble, however, as Burzam displayed the spontaneity of a tinkerer rather than the discipline of a researcher; he was talented, but it was difficult for him to retain interest in any single subject for lengthy periods of time. Burzam was thus useful as a member of research teams rather than production groups, but never rose high enough in the hierarchy to establish his own research team, because he would not investigate the same general topic for very long. This lack of discipline surprised his superiors, who expected an ex-slave would be easier to control, forgetting that Burzam had been free for more than year before he first met agents of the House in Stormreach, and he had grown to appreciate freedom of action away from the constraints of authority.

Thus Burzam became something of a trouble-shooter for Cannith South, assigned to projects which were stymieing the more disciplined (but perhaps less intuitive) researchers and developers, in order to help those teams overcome the difficulties they were facing. He also found assignments which would require more survival skills than most other artificers displayed; his travels across the breadth of Xen’drik bequeathed Burzam an affinity for combat rare in a researcher and thus appropriate for Cannith recovery & exploration units.

It was in this troubleshooting role that Burzam was assigned to help decipher the schema which provided Cannith South and Breland the ability to reach the Ark, and which brought the affable half-giant in contact with the group which would eventually be known as the Khorvaire Venturing Company.

By default Burzam will act as an unwashed and unsophisticated hick, much what one might expect from someone who spent more than twenty-five years as an uneducated slave, but his hard-earned Cannith-funded education will surface when the situation requires something greater, or when he finds something particularly interesting. He is thus a somewhat scatterbrained mixture of politically-savvy traveler through Cannith’s byzantine bureaucracies and simple-minded morality. Those who judge him based on his casual comments and the large weapons he is fond of throwing around are often taken aback when the subject of a complex magical effect arises, when he demonstrates the facility to debate the finer points of thaumaturgical art with many masters of the craft.